


It Hurts

by mothergayselle



Series: ellana lavellan [7]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Addiction, Angst, F/M, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:42:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26700862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothergayselle/pseuds/mothergayselle
Summary: cullen struggles with his addiction during 'perseverance' and lavellan magically intervenes
Relationships: Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford, Female Lavellan/Cullen Rutherford
Series: ellana lavellan [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1857022
Kudos: 12





	It Hurts

The months spent in the field proved useful when the box shattered at the wall beside her. The broken pieces of pottery and wood reflected off the barrier she’d produced on instinct, and Ellana watched as they tumbled to the ground near her feet. When she lifted her eyes again, Cullen’s stricken faced glowed blue through the magic erected above her skin.

“Maker’s breath!” he swore. His breath came in ragged tears. “I didn’t hear you enter. I—“

Ellana lowered the barrier — and her hands — in response. The harrowing energy of the room, however, buzzed at her senses like hornets. 

Cullen turned his face away from her probing gaze. “Forgive me.”

She didn’t have to ask — the smell of lyrium saturating the floor revealed all. Her heart squeezed itself momentarily. “Cullen, if you need to talk…” 

“You don’t have t—“

She almost sprung towards him as he staggered, barely catching himself on the desk before straightening. Cullen half-heartedly raised a hand to ward her off. “I never meant for this to interfere.”

What could she say that wouldn’t embarrass him further? She tried to modify her voice, minimizing its volume, softening the sheer dread she felt into something more digestible. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Yes.”

Ellana held his eyes in question.

Cullen relented, sighing. “I don’t know.”

His gaze became feverish then, crinkling with effort and strain. “You asked what happened to Ferelden’s circle. It was taken over by abominations. The templars — my friends — were _slaughtered.”_ The words died out, making space for the hastening of each inhale.

He’d mentioned it earlier, albeit in less detail. The cravings must make the memories worse, or more present… less distinguishable from the past, perhaps. Whatever the case, Cullen was clearly worsening, and the mana in Ellana’s body gathered in response to the danger. Not that the danger was hers — it was Cullen’s, and what should she do as he paced to the window? Talk him down? Leave him alone? Not leave him alone?

“I was… tortured.” Cullen voice darkened, making his voice like black static. “They tried to break my mind, and I…” He sighed again. “How can you be the same person after that? Still, I wanted to serve.” Bitterness soured his features.

“They sent me to Kirkwall. I trusted my knight-commander and _for what?_ Hm?” 

Ellana was silent at the rhetorical question.

“Her fear of mages ended in madness. Kirkwall’s circle fell. Innocent people died in the streets. Can’t you see why I want nothing to do with that life?” The fever in his eyes blazed in a crescendo, rendering them molten gold. The painful furrow of his eyebrows eclipsed the beauty Ellana would have normally associated the color with, however. The memories were so close now… even she could feel their edges.

“Of course I can,” she said. “I—“

 _“Don’t._ You should be questioning what I’ve done.” And had she not? Did he assume she would stay had he retained his misguided and dangerous view of magic?

“I thought this would be better,” Cullen continued, bringing a hand to his cheek. “That I would… regain some control over my life, but these thoughts won’t _leave me.”_

The fizzle of mana flared in her blood. His distress was like her own and yet Ellana fought to remain a spectator. Hadn’t she learned her lesson with Solas? Nothing good came from over-empathizing or wearing another’s pain like an amulet you could keep from them. 

Still… when Cullen gripped his head with each forearm, the desire to cast protective magic cut through her. Would he be angry? Hate her? But what if he sank into this vortex and his physical body failed? How could she help if he was already dead?

“How may lives depend on our success? I swore myself to this cause. I will not give less to the Inquisition than I did the Chantry. I should be taking it,” he hissed. Books crusted with dust and time toppled to the ground as his fist struck through them. The breath left his chest in one, final exhalation. The words, a whisper.

“I should be taking it.”

Sweat shined like an illness on his neck. Ellana listened to his breath… and froze as she heard it hitch. With emotion? Disease?

Each fingertip alighted with sparks. How could she help? How could she _h e l p?_

Was it the magic in her or the desire to aid that summoned him? Cole’s sudden presence warmed her side. His own magic washed over her like a sunrise — a gentle coming of something more. 

Her attention flicked to Cullen, but his head remained lowered, shoulders sagged. Even in his withdrawal, he should’ve noticed the new magic radiating the room. But… he didn’t seem to feel or notice anything else other than his own agony. How could she calm the memories?

“It lingers, festers, bubbles blue in the cracks that drain the slowest,” Cole said softly. He looked from Cullen and then Ellana in confirmation. Cullen’s pain was momentarily stolen, etched all over Cole’s face instead, and Cole’s eyes crinkled downwards. “It _hurts.”_

The desk shuddered when Cullen backed into it — he’d flinched away from the bookcase and the spirit and its unannounced appearance.

“What? No, I… get out of my head, Cole!” He fisted a hand against a temple and cringed at Cole’s further scrutiny.

“Siren’s song, sweet and sticky. It’s louder when he sleeps, slithers along his skin like serpents, cool, no scales, lovely. Thorn flowers root in the back of his eyes now, cutting, carving, no longer lovely in his wake.”

The words struck at Cullen again, sapping the will from his body. Even Ellana felt it, the words, how they peeled open what wanted to stay buried. The below of a hungry thing. Empty. Parasitic.

Cole’s fingers brushed over her wrist and there it was, spider-webbed into the seams of Cullen’s essence. Chains of blue bottled deep into his joints. The ends of the lyrium ballooned into ball-and-chain flails, hooking deeper into the boned pockets. All of the blue was inflamed, like a virus, bulging where the knots had formed as if the threads had bunkered down and congealed. One knot in particular pulsed at the hollow of his temple, behind Cullen’s closed fist.

Dagna had mentioned that she thought lyrium to be alive. Reading the original report hadn’t inspired much feeling on the matter beyond curiosity, but there was a visceral horror in the intelligence of it now. Ellana felt a stirring in her chest and wondered if the lyrium could sense her anxiety, mock the acceleration of her heart by mirroring its pace. Cullen’s eyes closed shut as his forehead spasmed in pain.

All blue vanished the moment Ellana moved away from Cole’s knuckles. Red feathers became feathers again. They spanned, a warm cape — necessary for the ice-storms in Ferelden — protectively around his shoulders. Without Cole’s sight, there was only gold whiskers, the gloss of sweat, the lines of exhaustion lasso-ing the areas of his face which never loosened.

Cullen’s eyes snapped open when he felt her beneath his gaze. Dazed with surprise, his instinct was a gasp through the nose. The sound was ominous, a note of fear, and then his jaw clamped down, although he didn’t move away. His eyes were so afraid…widened in shock, and Ellana wondered if they softened when she pressed her lips on his.

His mouth was cracked, dry from weeks of ceaseless worry where he’d worked it over with his teeth. Ellana’s focus wavered at the feel of leather on her cheek. Cullen was responding, cradling her with a tenderness that juxtaposed the distress he was in. 

It was paralyzing, the ardor. A comet where Cole had been the sunrise. Scorching rock… something actively _on fire._ The opposite of cold, a lack of what was empty. Emptiness turned on itself. Everything filled, completely.

Still, there was a need for restraint. A thought-form that was then sent deep into Cullen, a coil of magic. Ellana ignored the closeness of his body and searched. He made it easy… inadvertently, of course. Cullen’s entire body rebelled against the lyrium, and the natural opening of their mouths allowed for what she sought to bring to the surface. 

She could sense how his organs spasmed like a stomach too sick to hold anything in it. But it, like Cullen, responded to her call. The hard, mean blue she drank to make her strong flexed in her own veins, beckoning the magic which served him no longer.

It was quick. The taste of lyrium in her throat was sugar and acid. More acerbic because of its hunger, maybe. This lyrium had existed inside Cullen for years, feeding while the rest of it faded away with time. It was the scum collected at the bottom of the proverbial bottle. Well, it was. She would use it elsewhere when spinning a spell, or crafting a flower out of ice. Something beautiful to counter the torment it’d caused. If this lyrium was a person, she would’ve killed it.

Cullen drew away, shy, and more satisfyingly to her, flushed. Life and blood had returned to his cheeks. Even the next few breaths were less laborious — the subsequent smile, natural. Excited.

“Is it gone?” She didn’t turn to ask.

Cullen’s brows curved upon realizing she wasn’t addressing him. “Who—“ Ellana watched how his eyes jumped to the back of the office, where Cole was. She knew the strangeness that came from forgetting he’d been there. The word _uncomfortable_ came to mind.

“Yes. The memory of the blue lingers, but the cravings won’t hurt so much now. You helped him.”

Whether she’d truly helped or not would become clear in a matter of days. Ellana hoped… regardless, she couldn’t be sure of his pride, how Cullen would react to her help. Magical help. 

The only answer — the final solution — bubbled on her lips, as caustic as the lyrium had been when it sunk onto her tongue.

“Make him forget.”

Cullen froze at the request. “Forget?” he asked. “Forget… this?” Ellana’s jaw tightened in response to the fresh panic cracking across his face, opening and twisting it all at once. 

“Don’t,” he pleaded. “Why…?” His eyes moved between each of hers in confusion. He didn’t see her reasoning.

Her lips burned at the touch of his gaze. Their first kiss, arcanely removed from the mind. It was better this way, despite his protests. She didn’t belong with the weight of the memories that lingered, and the reminder of her assistance would only haunt him later on. He would think he’d been too weak to recover from the addiction alone — which wasn’t the case. 

The case was… well, it was that she’d involved herself in matters she shouldn’t have. Why hadn’t she learned her lesson? Hadn’t intrusion only made it worse with Solas — made the dismissal of the truth more painful? Didn’t she understand that she couldn’t fix the people she loved on her own? 

No… she’d let Cullen claim his own recovery. In another world, where she was more wise and less reckless, it’d be as simple as that. 

Cole’s voice was a quick affirmation. “Yes.”

The following magic charged the enclosed room and deepened the atmosphere, creating a thick haze that made Ellana’s eyelids heavy. Before Cullen came to, she’d already put space between them, moving away with utter reluctance. Every jostle of the body resisted. When the disorientation lifted and his awareness zeroed in on her, Ellana fidgeted, transferring her weight from foot to foot.

“Inquisitor?” he said, as if her company was a new addition to the day. A pleased smile irradiated his gaze. “What can I do for you?”

The artifice was difficult to swallow, and she’d never been a good actress. Nevertheless, Cullen’s contentment was sincere, and that sincereness was tolerable enough to mimic.

The feverish swirl in his eyes was gone, freeing their natural brilliance. The warmth in them extended to her like the carnelian torchlight which glowed across Skyhold in the evening. “I came to tell you that Leliana said the reports you asked for are still late. No need to meet in the War Room tonight.”

That same brilliance stuttered in irritation. “Late again?” he muttered.

“Late again,” she echoed. “And… may I suggest you get some sleep? For once?” Ellana forced a smirk at the red blush spilling into his neck. “The Iron Bull is starting to get on my nerves, and Cassandra won’t stop reading Varric’s new novel.” The scar on his upper lip danced when he grinned. 

“Who else am I supposed to learn swordsmanship from?” she teased. An excuse. “It looks like I need you, Commander. So rest up. _That’s an order.”_

Whether or not she’d actually continue her lessons was suspect — Cullen was barely able to fit his own schedule into the day — but the incentive, the promise of spending time with her seemed to convince him. Cullen, poorly concealing the joy on his face, lowered his eyes respectfully.

“As you wish, Inquisitor.”

Dorian would be shouting from the battlements when she told him of this. Meanwhile, Cullen’s sudden elation was a tangible aura that she made herself abandon, although the hit of fresh air as she exited the office was also soothing. Cole was nowhere to be found and she was glad. She did not need helping, only peace. Solitude, in which she could think, and regret, and wonder what their first kiss would’ve been like without her magical interference.


End file.
